I laid in my bed that night, looking at all the pictures in the room and all the posters. The guitar and keyboard left on the side of the room to collect dust and probably dead bugs. The door opened to Eiji coming in and plopping down on the bottom bunk. Part of the reason we were so close was because we couldn't really escape each other, nor did I really want to, he was the most stable relationship I had in my life. Having Eiji around calmed me down and knowing that I could talk to him at any time no matter what made my heatstay calm.

"Eimi, are you sleeping already?" He said so loud, so, even if I was sleeping, I wouldn't be sleeping any longer. "Aren't you lucky? Captain Tezuka is talking to you again!" He laughed. "You must be happy!"

I actually didn't know what I felt… I hadn't talked to Tezuka in so long that I got used to being without him, I was just someone admiring from afar… I think what I am purposely putting myself through is creating a problem. Now that he is talking to me and now that I think about it, both of us have changed so much in the past few years. He used to be cheerful and he smiled all the time. We would hang out for hours and play tennis or talk.

Even if we ended up going to the same middle school, I guess it was my entire fault that we stopped talking. If he wanted to talk to me earlier he would… We happened to have the same classes all throughout middle school and I would always see him at tennis while I waited for Eiji. Somewhere in between was it me?

"Eimi… You said you would talk to me about this." Eiji whined. "I waited so long and now you won't talk to me." Eiji waited a while. "Does your wrist and ankle hurt?"

"A bit…" I had only realized now that he was talking to me. "Eiji… can I lay down with you right now?"

I could feel the atmosphere lighting up. "Of course, my little sister!" He jumped out of his bed and stood up to look at me. His eyes shined with a hint of surprise and a lot of excitement. "I feel like a real older brother now."

I didn't really know how to respond to his response to my request… but I felt like I needed to talk to him face-to-face. I climbed out of bed and down the ladder to lay down with my brother. "You didn't ask him to talk to me right?" I had a feeling that's how this all started. It might have been this twin thing, or I might have been over thinking it. Either way, I wanted to put the thought to rest.

"Huh? No." He quickly said. "Just be happy he talked to you. You guys had a thing before."

"Eiji… we were grade schoolers… The only thing we had was probably an exchange of chocolate, like I was some crazy stupid stalker."

"Elementary, Middle school, High school… college, Love is still the same."

I didn't want to argue with him, only because I couldn't stand Eiji being slightly mad at me. I didn't exactly think I was in love, or ever in love with Tezuka. "He doesn't even call me by my first name anymore…"

"Give him a break, Eimi. You haven't talked to each other in almost two years." Eiji really did sound like a big brother this time. Through his playful and over-excited attitude, he somehow finds a way to be serious when I talk to him… "It's not like you called him by his first name."

I sighed. "I don't ever recall calling him by his first name. I know it, but that doesn't mean I said it."

"Take it from your big brother, you need to run with the baton they gave you!"

I laughed a little as I stared at the patterns the paint made on the ceiling.

Eiji smiled from ear to ear, as far as he was able to smile. "Our last year in middle school has just begun, maybe you and the captain will…" He nudged me and raised his eyebrows.

At that moment, it seemed impossible. "Eiji… you are silly."

"You didn't let me finish! I meant go to the same high school." He laughed.

"Oh, Eiji...I'm gonna go up to my bunk now. I'm really glad that we did talk about this." I sat up, and I was about to head up to my bunk, but I was interrupted…

"Do you still love him, Eimi?" Eiji asked. He was serious too. I looked at his intent eyes, intent to know the truth. "You used to hang out with him more than you spent time with me, you used to talk about him all the time, and the way you looked when you talked to him…"

"Why are you asking? Does he like me, or something?" I forgot… or I was unaware of how I was before.

"The Captain is hard to read, you never know though… Please answer."

"I… really don't know. I wasn't even aware that I loved him before…" Eiji was putting thoughts in my head that I really didn't like currently. There was too much to think about.

I climbed up to my bunk.

"By the way, there is this new first year, and he is amazing. He's really short, but he has skill according to what we saw today and what the others had said. He reminds me of you when you played tennis." He kept rambling about his day. I liked it when he talked, I didn't like the silence. Nothing really happens to me, so all I did was listen to him. Today was different. I couldn't listen to him. I drifted in and out of his conversation, or his monologue, until I drifted to sleep.

That night I had a dream about Tezuka. It was inevitable. All I could think about was him and how he talked to me today, and Eiji's talk with me. We were kids. We were running around town till we got to the playground. We sat in the grass finding random flowers. Tezuka made a flower tiara. "Eimi, I'm going to marry you some day!" The young Tezuka put the flower tiara on my head. Was that real?

"Eimi!" It was Eiji's voice. "Wake up now!"

The sun shined through the windows, blinding my eyes as it reflected off the few white spaces in the wall.

It didn't feel like I had slept long. After I realized that this bright morning was my reality and not that dream where I was a kid again, I had almost cried. That dream was surely a memory… so very distant though.